13 February 2009

Rosary

I wonder how the Mysteries of Light are bedding down. My own reactions were conflicting: respect for Roman Pontiffs and especially for JP2 as against a feeling that practically it made the distribution of the mysteries on weekdays complicated and unnatural, and historically it subverted the old and lovely notion of the Rosary as our Lady's Psalter. I soon slipped into a habit of occasionally adding the M of L to the usual mysteries, and of sometimes substituting one or more of them for one or more of e.g. the Joyful Mysteries. It had in any case been my habit to substitute occasionally other Mysteries (such as the Immaculate Conception, Presentation of Our Lady, Birth of John Baptist). The actual selection of Mysteries was of course quite late in the history of this devotion.

I have a personal eccentricity of treating the Our Father of my daily Mass, and the three Hail Marys in the Prayers for Russia, as the start of the first decade I say each day ... so as to have the daily Rosary springing out of the daily Mass. How wrong is this?

Me Judah's daughters once caress'd,Call'd me of mothers the most bless'd;Now (fatal change!) of mothers most distress'd.How shall my soul its motions guide,How shall I stem the various tide,Whilst faith and doubt my lab'ring thoughts divide?For whilst of thy dear sight I am beguil'd,I trust the God, but oh! I fear the child.

Those three beads (Aves) at the beginning? Recite the "Angelus" between them. By saying the Angelus once with morning prayers, a sceond time with evening prayers, and a third time with your daily rosary, you've got it covered! (Hey, Islamics pray several times a day--we should, too.)

They ought to be a chaplet unto themselves like the Divine Mercy one said on common rosary beads.

There's nothing wrong with them but I reckon they'll disappear as 'Santo subito!' seems to have done.

Keep the parallel of the rosary with the psalter.

I've taken to saying the rosary the way 1800s-early 1900s RC prayer manuals and I understand Vatican Radio do it without the Apostles' Creed, first Our Father or three Hail Marys but with prayers more like the beginning of the hours.

"I've taken to saying the rosary the way 1800s-early 1900s RC prayer manuals and I understand Vatican Radio do it without the Apostles' Creed, first Our Father or three Hail Marys but with prayers more like the beginning of the hours."

Funny, that's just the way I prayed the Rosary this weekend in choir with the friars of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. (I was on a vocation retreat). They do it with no Creed and opening prayers like those of the Dominican Office.

Fr John Hunwicke

was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. He is now incardinated into the Personal Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham. The opinions expressed on this Blog are not asserted as being those of the Magisterium of the Church, but as the writer's opinions as a private individual. Nevertheless, the writer strives, hopes, and prays that the views he expresses are conformable with and supportive of the Magisterium. Nothing on this site is to be taken as representing the views of the Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham, of its Ordinary, or of any part of it.